POLIN Museum & Willy Brandt Square
Why is it significant?
Look up at the sweeping glass exterior of the museum, split down the middle by a dramatic, canyon-like ravine of undulating concrete, and then cross to Skwer Willy'ego Brandta. On a brick wall stands a bronze relief showing a kneeling man with bowed head and clasped hands.
Key Facts
| Place | POLIN Museum & Willy Brandt Square |
|---|---|
| Address | ul. Mordechaja Anielewicza 6, 00-157 Warszawa, Poland |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.24950, 20.99140 |
| Part of Walk | Lost World of Muranów: The Warsaw Ghetto, Resistance and Memory |
| Generated | Generated |
Look up at the sweeping glass exterior of the museum, split down the middle by a dramatic, canyon-like ravine of undulating concrete, and then cross to Skwer Willy'ego Brandta. On a brick wall stands a bronze relief showing a kneeling man with bowed head and clasped hands. Here, in the cold drizzle of December 1970, a single silent gesture transformed post-war European history.
On 7 December 1970, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt came to Warsaw to sign the historic Treaty of Warsaw, formally recognising Poland's post-war western border along the Oder-Neisse line. After laying a wreath at the Ghetto Heroes Monument, Brandt stepped back, straightened the ribbon, and suddenly dropped to his knees on the wet granite stones, remaining motionless for half a minute. There had been no advance notice; German journalists were stunned, and Polish bodyguards stood frozen.
Brandt later explained in his memoirs: At the abyss of German history and under the burden of millions of murdered human beings, I did what people do when words fail. Brandt himself had been an active anti-Nazi exile who fought the Hitler regime from Norway and Sweden. His spontaneous act of vicarious repentance became the ultimate global symbol of moral accountability and German-Polish reconciliation.
Across the plaza, the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, designed by Finnish architect Rainer Mahlamäki and opened in 2013, celebrates life rather than only tragedy. Before 1939, Warsaw was home to nearly 375,000 Jews, a third of the city's inhabitants, second only to New York as the world's greatest Jewish cultural capital. Inside, a timber roof reconstructed by hand recreates the magnificent 17th-century painted wooden synagogue of Gwoździec.
We continue our journey through the vanished quarter southward. Walk along Karmelicka street and turn right into Dzielna street, where the red-brick gate of Pawiak Prison stands.